American history books often compress momentous events into capsules, summaries, one-line explanations.

Such has often been the case with President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the history-changing document that freed the slaves and changed the course of the Civil War.

Now historian and journalist Todd Brewster restores the detail that’s missing, and shows us the six critical months between the time Lincoln first spoke about his intention to free the slaves and the release of the Emancipation Proclamation.

As Brewster describes it in his book “Lincoln’s Gamble” it was perhaps the most tumultuous six months of Lincoln’s presidency. He fought with his generals, disappointed his cabinet, and sank into painful bouts of clinical depression.